From a seat in the rear of the room, observe your students and take notes on what they are doing while the teacher is presenting in the front of the room, while they are supposed to be taking notes, doing seatwork, and/or when they are working in the lab. Look closely at each student for a range of behaviors, and resist the temptation on only see what you expect. Note especially what is happening furthest from the teacher.
What strategies are used by your CT to encourage students to attend and engage? Watch carefully how your CT moves around the room. Draw a map of the classroom and sketch a path showing (approximately) this movement.
How important is student engagement to your view of how you will teach? What strategies will you employ to encourage student engagement? How will use your proximity to provide feedback and manage student behavior?
In my middle school classroom at Gaudet Midde, the teacher (Mrs. Zahm) has her projection screen tv on the side of the classroom to encourage more students to pay attention and help facilitate learning. She has a clicker that she can walk around the room with to change powerpoint slides, play clips etc. This also allows Mrs. Zahm to make sure the students are taking the notes. The Students have a binder with a "glossary" for the vocabulary words for the notes and they have a science journal which is organized for labs and other procedures. Mrs. Zahm is constantly walking around checking to make sure students are taking notes in the right place and of the right things. When I observe the classroom in action, I can see what the students are doing when Mrs. Zahm is presenting. Many students are interested in the material and raise their hands quickly when she asks questions. Often, these are the same students over and over again. Some students are constantly talking and off topic but Mrs. Zahm is very quick to redirect them back to the material. The students have a "warm-up" activity to do when they walk in the classroom everyday and it is a simple paper exercise relating to the lesson of the day. This helps keep students occupied during class transition and gets the students thinking about what they are about to do and usually involves inquiry. This has to be monitored because once the students are done, they resort back to talking or fooling around. One girl in the class is a transfer student from Japan and struggles with her english. She has a small computer like device that she uses to translate her worksheets and that works best for her. She has a strong drive to learn which helps her learn the material and enhance her english skills. In every class Mrs. Zham has, there are about 2-3 students with either behavior problems or require a paraporfessional with them in class so they sit in the front left bench in the class so the paraprofessional can easily help them take notes and pay attention. When the class is working on a lab, the students seem to be more focused because they feel more responsibility. The lab I observed involved 9 different substances and how they interacted in small doses on a well plate. The students were to observe and record their observations and almost all students did what they were supposed to. During these activities, Mrs. Zahm and myself were walking around the classroom to see how the students were doing, if they had questions and encouraging higher thinking by asking questions about the lab. This helped keep students on track and since they knew we were walking around they were less inclined to fool around.
Mrs. Zahm is a well seasoned teacher so she knows well how to keep her students engaged and focused. When she is giving presentations and presenting new material she is walking around the room and trying to make connections between old and new material to help the students get it. When presenting new matieral she is constantly asking questions where students have to raise their hands, sometimes she asks students questions who do not have their hands raised. She encourages students to guess and hypothesise predictions and is always positively encouraging the students to take chances. She will build knowledge on what students say and ask them for examples. The classroom is set up into 8 lab benches with anywhere from 2-4 students at each bench. Mrs. Zahm walks around and through all of them as she presents or conducts labs. When she is using the tv screen to present, she will have the lights turned off in the room to encourage the focus to be geered to the tv screen. 7th graders are not very sneaky so when they are whispering or not paying attention it is pretty obvious so Mrs. Zahm will ask them to pay attention or walk closer to them and put her hand on their arm to encourage them to pay attention.
I find that when students are engaged they are more inclined to learn. The learning is not forced when they are engaged because they are enjoying the class. As a teacher, I want to encourage all students to want to be engaged in the class. I want the class to be interesting enough to students that they want to come to class. I will use a lot of differentiation in the class to help more students learn and incorporate activities and labs to keep students participating. I will use hooks in my lessons and encourage students to take guesses and use inquiry methods for students to deduce information. I like when a teacher walks around the room as they teach. I think it encourages students to pay attention and be more involved in the learning. Students are more likely to pay attention when the teacher is near them so I will absolutely use proximity as encouragement to pay attention and a method of classroom management. I will use more positive feedback and reinforcement to encourage good behavior and habits. I would rather point out when someone is participating and working hard than when someone is misbehaving in the class.
What strategies are used by your CT to encourage students to attend and engage? Watch carefully how your CT moves around the room. Draw a map of the classroom and sketch a path showing (approximately) this movement.
How important is student engagement to your view of how you will teach? What strategies will you employ to encourage student engagement? How will use your proximity to provide feedback and manage student behavior?
In my middle school classroom at Gaudet Midde, the teacher (Mrs. Zahm) has her projection screen tv on the side of the classroom to encourage more students to pay attention and help facilitate learning. She has a clicker that she can walk around the room with to change powerpoint slides, play clips etc. This also allows Mrs. Zahm to make sure the students are taking the notes. The Students have a binder with a "glossary" for the vocabulary words for the notes and they have a science journal which is organized for labs and other procedures. Mrs. Zahm is constantly walking around checking to make sure students are taking notes in the right place and of the right things. When I observe the classroom in action, I can see what the students are doing when Mrs. Zahm is presenting. Many students are interested in the material and raise their hands quickly when she asks questions. Often, these are the same students over and over again. Some students are constantly talking and off topic but Mrs. Zahm is very quick to redirect them back to the material. The students have a "warm-up" activity to do when they walk in the classroom everyday and it is a simple paper exercise relating to the lesson of the day. This helps keep students occupied during class transition and gets the students thinking about what they are about to do and usually involves inquiry. This has to be monitored because once the students are done, they resort back to talking or fooling around. One girl in the class is a transfer student from Japan and struggles with her english. She has a small computer like device that she uses to translate her worksheets and that works best for her. She has a strong drive to learn which helps her learn the material and enhance her english skills. In every class Mrs. Zham has, there are about 2-3 students with either behavior problems or require a paraporfessional with them in class so they sit in the front left bench in the class so the paraprofessional can easily help them take notes and pay attention. When the class is working on a lab, the students seem to be more focused because they feel more responsibility. The lab I observed involved 9 different substances and how they interacted in small doses on a well plate. The students were to observe and record their observations and almost all students did what they were supposed to. During these activities, Mrs. Zahm and myself were walking around the classroom to see how the students were doing, if they had questions and encouraging higher thinking by asking questions about the lab. This helped keep students on track and since they knew we were walking around they were less inclined to fool around.
Mrs. Zahm is a well seasoned teacher so she knows well how to keep her students engaged and focused. When she is giving presentations and presenting new material she is walking around the room and trying to make connections between old and new material to help the students get it. When presenting new matieral she is constantly asking questions where students have to raise their hands, sometimes she asks students questions who do not have their hands raised. She encourages students to guess and hypothesise predictions and is always positively encouraging the students to take chances. She will build knowledge on what students say and ask them for examples. The classroom is set up into 8 lab benches with anywhere from 2-4 students at each bench. Mrs. Zahm walks around and through all of them as she presents or conducts labs. When she is using the tv screen to present, she will have the lights turned off in the room to encourage the focus to be geered to the tv screen. 7th graders are not very sneaky so when they are whispering or not paying attention it is pretty obvious so Mrs. Zahm will ask them to pay attention or walk closer to them and put her hand on their arm to encourage them to pay attention.
I find that when students are engaged they are more inclined to learn. The learning is not forced when they are engaged because they are enjoying the class. As a teacher, I want to encourage all students to want to be engaged in the class. I want the class to be interesting enough to students that they want to come to class. I will use a lot of differentiation in the class to help more students learn and incorporate activities and labs to keep students participating. I will use hooks in my lessons and encourage students to take guesses and use inquiry methods for students to deduce information. I like when a teacher walks around the room as they teach. I think it encourages students to pay attention and be more involved in the learning. Students are more likely to pay attention when the teacher is near them so I will absolutely use proximity as encouragement to pay attention and a method of classroom management. I will use more positive feedback and reinforcement to encourage good behavior and habits. I would rather point out when someone is participating and working hard than when someone is misbehaving in the class.